


Dans La Vitrine

by RhiannonSilverflame (throughtosunrise)



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, References to Abuse, Slight Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-08 15:59:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughtosunrise/pseuds/RhiannonSilverflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They inhabit two worlds that only intersect in moments -- slim fragments of time, some stolen and some simply noticed like a reflection in the glass caught out of the corner of one's eye.  But it's in those shared moments, when they can see into each other's world, that they're beginning to learn how to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. December 1831

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> I have to admit that this story took a bit of a turn from my original intent, which was to be more overtly sad, but I felt like that tone didn't quite fit with the way this turned out. I hope it adequately fulfills your request anyhow!
> 
> This is also set in the musicalverse, but apparently I'm incapable of sticking strictly to that, so I've borrowed bits of backstory and characterization from the Brick.

There was a doll, once. She remembers that.

It resided in the window of the shop across the square, and with its smart bonnet and plain but impeccable dark dress it was the envy of every little girl in Montfermeil.

"Soon, darling, soon, I promise," Papa had said every time she asked for it, but for reasons she's only recently begun to understand "soon" never came any closer, and the promise ended up being worth no more than any Papa made to other people.

And then one day the doll was gone, and so was the girl her parents had taken in when she was too young to recall it clearly. They had disappeared on the same day; she remembers that, too.

If she really thinks about it, although that's something she doesn't particularly care to do, she can point to that day as the one when everything began to change. Éponine had never paid the girl much mind except to emulate her mother's haughty posturing and glares, but on the day the shop window was suddenly bare it was the empty spot on the hearth where Cosette -- she remembers the name, since Mama yelled it often enough -- once slept that she noticed more.

It's not just that the cracks in her parents' affection for her started to show shortly after that. She's long since stopped believing that they do care about her, if they ever really did, and envies that Gavroche doesn't have memories like that to confuse him on the subject. Éponine's never been able to express in words exactly what it is, but she has always felt like some kind of warmth, some spark, something inexpressibly tiny and fleeting that might have been slipped out of her grasp on the day the doll and the girl went away.

There's a market square here, too, though it's far dirtier and more crowded than the one from her childhood in Montfermeil (and she never knows any more how much of that memory is real and how much she's just made up on one of those nights when she can't stop torturing herself with recollections of how things used to be better, because even that is preferable to facing reality) and she's not looking out at it from the doorway of a nice, comfortable home. She's slept on the paving stones here more times than she wants to count, without even the embers of a fire nearby for warmth.

She begs, some days, when she has to. She'd rather not but when you're so hungry you can barely see it's hard to stick to a resolution, let alone care much about whatever dignity you have left. Other days . . . she prefers not to think about those, when it's either do what her father tells her no matter how much the idea of it galls her or risk another beating, and it's almost better when she knows that when she closes her eyes and pretends it's not her doing these things at least the faces are ones she can forget rather than the ones she has to see every time she decides to come home. (The concept of "home" isn't what it once was, and holds little to no appeal.)

Then there's the day that she looks out across the usual crowd in this slum to see a bonnet, a plain dark dress, and a pair of blue eyes that once stared across the market square with the same longing as she did.

They are looking at each other now, the girl in rags and the girl as prettily dressed as a doll in a shop window. It was Christmas Eve then, and it's almost Christmas now, but despite the cold Éponine could swear she feels a spark of warmth somewhere deep within her, surprising but vaguely familiar, like a distant memory regaining form. That's all it takes: she can feel the certainty in her gut, and she'd never be able to explain why, but even if the face she sees is rosy-cheeked and radiant where the much younger one she remembers was sullen and dirt-smudged, she knows who the girl is.

There's no flash of recognition on Cosette's face but then, Éponine thinks bitterly, why would there be? If Cosette remembers her at all, it's certainly not as the sorry castoff she's become. (She used to run across the square to the toy shop because she liked seeing her reflection in the glass, next to the doll. She doesn't look into windows much any more.) What there is, what she sees in Cosette's eyes as they continue to hold each other's gaze, is a profound compassion that stands out from the distaste and horror she's used to seeing on the faces of the bourgeoisie who stray into this quarter. There's no judgment in that look, no anger, nothing that ought to make her want to flinch away in shame; she can't remember the last time anyone looked at her that way. Not even Marius; he means well, but it's evident that she's more of a cause than a person to him. By rights she ought to hate Cosette for having everything now that she has nothing herself; perhaps she'd like to, and God knows she's _trying_ to, but she can't. No one ever looks at her that way, and she craves the way it makes her feel.

She wonders what Cosette sees right now, but whatever it is she's amazed that it hasn't driven the other girl away. They don't speak or so much as move toward each other but for now it's enough; this moment is like that spark she lost long ago, ephemeral, and Éponine's afraid that if she even breathes it will break whatever spell this is, and this tentative connection will slip away from her like everything good always does.

It isn't until Cosette's father puts a hand on her shoulder to lead her away -- though not before Cosette gives her a small smile of apology -- that Éponine remembers the chill of the winter air on her skin.

***

She wonders if she'll see the girl again.

It hasn't been all that long since she left the convent school and came to live with her Papa, and she loves him dearly even if he is eccentric in his reclusiveness and his insistence that they move between the several residences he keeps here in Paris on a regular basis. They don't get out of the house much anyhow, and they never entertain visitors, so while Cosette is so warm and well cared for that her childhood feels like little more than a bad dream she is lonely. There's a liveliness to her spirit that chafes under the constant seclusion; she knows that the streets of Paris are dangerous, but there are days when she just wants to explore them on her own terms, rather than follow another one of Papa's carefully proscribed routes, or watch from the inside of a fiacre as it jolts along down the paving stones of the street.

She's always suspected that there is beauty hidden in this city somewhere, beneath all the filth and squalor. She has to believe it. She's sure she saw a glimpse of it in that poor girl's face, and beyond that something that might be familiar. She's not sure why, but it makes her think of when she was a little girl twisting castoff rags into the shape of a doll, staring longingly across the square into the window of a shop until the day Papa found her, took her away from the inn, and gave her the doll she'd been yearning for. She still has that doll, even if she hasn't thought about it much in years.

There was something else about the girl that called to her, too, in the sure way she moved around the square, familiar with the ebb and flow of the crowd. It's an almost intimate knowledge of the city, and Cosette is oddly jealous -- of what, she can't say.

She's had enough of the safety and seclusion of her bedroom walls. She thinks she wouldn't mind sneaking out of the garden gate on the Rue Plumet after nightfall and running through the streets with that girl; she thinks, maybe, that they're both longing to break free.

It's like a secret the two of them share by unspoken, instinctive agreement, and it makes her feel less alone. She likes that.

So she finds herself looking forward to tomorrow, when she and Papa will go out for their walk and do what they can for the wretched inhabitants of this city. It's strange; she can't remember wanting something so much since she was a little girl wishing with all her heart for that doll in the shop window. The day her Papa came into her life was the day her whole life changed, and she's convinced that if she can find the girl it will mean something just as significant.

The prospect is intriguing, almost intoxicating, and when Cosette goes to sleep it's with a sense of anticipation for what the morning will bring. Maybe then -- _please, God, please_ , she thinks, with all the fervor of a prayer -- she can find some of the freedom she's been craving.

***

Éponine is used to watching people. Sometimes it's because she's playing lookout for her father and his gang; sometimes she's trying to find someone, and she's good at that, because the one small consolation in being as plain and insignificant as she is lies in her ability to not be noticed in a crowd. Occasionally she just watches people because she doesn't have anything else to do, and at other times the chance of a few days' dinner has her looking for an easy mark.

Today it's the possibility of something else entirely, and she's pressed up against the outside wall of her dingy tenement searching for a glimpse of a man in an ugly yellow coat who, she hopes, will be accompanied by a girl in a bonnet. She's made a point of asking around; she's done favors here and there for some of the shopkeepers and other residents before, and she'd be only too happy to cash in on them by getting answers to her inquiries about Cosette's father and his philanthropic habits, but no one has much information to give her.

"You're on the lookout for something." The voice comes from somewhere beside her elbow, and without turning to look she reaches over to ruffle the hair of the boy she knows is standing there even though she knows he'll duck out of the way.

"Stop that," he says in an affronted tone, and now Éponine turns to smirk at him.

"Too old for that now, are you?"

Gavroche glares at her in the way only a younger brother can, the expression oddly juxtaposed with the quick flash of a smile that follows, in response to her question. "What're you watching for anyway?"

"Can't I just be curious?" Éponine retorts, and he casts a pointed glance toward the building where she lives by way of an answer. She can't help feeling defensive, even if he has every reason to assume it's a job. "I have my own reasons."

Gavroche levels a scrutinizing look at her, tapping one finger against his chin, until he finally nods. "So what is it? What's so interesting that's got your ears all pricked up?"

Éponine leans forward and seizes him by the lapels of his coat in a sudden fit of hopeful (despite her better judgment) exuberance, but she makes sure to keep her voice low. "D'you know the old gentleman who comes round here giving out money?"

"Maybe," allows Gavroche, dubiously. "Top hat and ugly coat, has that girl tagging along?"

"That's the one." Éponine lets go of him, but keeps leaning close. "What do you know about them?"

"He's a decent old cove, and Mamselle-His-Daughter seems nice enough." There's a hint of warning in Gavroche's voice, as if he doesn't quite believe her intentions are innocent. Éponine supposes he may be right about that; while she can't find it in herself to hate Cosette, and she tried, she can't help resenting Cosette's father. For taking Cosette away, or leaving her to a rapid downward spiral of a life, perhaps both; maybe they're one and the same. "Comes around about the same time every day, but she's only been trailing after him for the past week or so. Generous. Get 'em in trouble, they don't look out."

She nods. "I know." She ought to warn them off, most likely, because if word hasn't gotten around about them yet it will soon, and it won't be long before her father sets his sights on that particularly tantalizing mark. She should . . . but she likes knowing Cosette comes around regularly, even if it's not for her.

"Getting to be about that time. He'll be showing up soon. I've got some kids to look after, anyhow, so I'll be going." Gavroche makes a show of straightening his coat lapels, looking affronted at having had to endure such undignified treatment from his own sister, then doffs an imaginary cap to her as he bolts off.

Éponine's so intent on the movement of the crowd that she barely even notices when Marius darts through the doorway and calls a greeting to her; he's probably on his way to another one of his meetings with his friends. (Turnabout is fair play, anyhow, and it's not as if he ever noticed in the first place how she would follow him around, so he wouldn't even know she hasn't been doing that of late.)

They can have their grand talk about the rights of the people and the glory of the Republic; Cosette's gentle smile yesterday gave Éponine more optimism than all their speeches. She never dares to entertain that much hope -- it always leads to disappointment -- but this time she very much wants to, and damn the consequences.

There -- she notices when the ordinary street noises turn into a steady murmur, and when people start to move toward a single spot in the crowd. Most denizens of this neighborhood, or at least the ones who don't resort as easily to more circumspect means of fending for themselves, don't have enough pride left to keep them from gravitating toward anyone who might give them a scrap of something; the effect isn't unlike rats converging on some bit of food. Really, they aren't much more than rats in the eyes of most of the bourgeoisie. Éponine hasn't quite learned yet how to completely let go of her pride, such as it is, and ordinarily wouldn't follow their lead unless she was really that desperate (though that happens more often than she cares to admit), but it isn't a handout that she's hoping to get.

She watches, just for a moment, as Cosette and her father move through the throng clustering around them and stop to speak to someone here, offer a smile and a clasped hand to another there. She notices the subtle difference between them: where there's a quiet, driven sort of intensity to her father's demeanor, as if he's doing all this for a reason, Cosette isn't just following his lead. There's a guilelessness in her actions that suggests she genuinely believes it's the right thing to do. Not for appearance's sake, or to atone for some past misdeeds, but because she cares. Éponine had decided that people like that don't exist except in imagination, but . . . here's one, right in front of her.

Éponine is so transfixed by the warmth she feels when she realizes this that all she can do is stand there and stare.


	2. January 1832

Cosette knows that Papa hates to see her upset, and he would do anything to prevent it; she can never forget his reaction the day they saw a cart full of convicts on their way to join the chain gang, and he realized how shocked she was by seeing that kind of abject misery. She wonders if he hopes that she doesn't remember the part of her life before he took her away from the Thénardiers. For the most part it's a blur, and she's fine with that, but she does know that there was a time when she wasn't happy, when people shouted at her and treated her badly. She survived it then -- if anything, she remembers hoping that the innkeeper's daughter would be kind to her -- and wishes Papa wouldn't treat her as if she couldn't handle the reminder that there is still that kind of sadness in the world.

Yes, it makes her sad, but it's not the awareness of it that's the worst part: it's the wishing that she could do more. So she obstinately refuses to let him leave her behind on his forays into the slums. Yes, it's dangerous, but she doesn't mind that at all; it's exciting, to tell the truth. Besides, that girl is out here somewhere. She always is; Cosette has noticed her every day for the past week, even though she takes care never to be in the same spot.

She moves through the crowd giving out smiles and kind words with the coins she puts into outstretched hands. These are people she's helping, not some faceless and nebulous mass, so she does her best to commit faces to memory, but one thing she hasn't been able to forget is the look in the girl's eyes: it reminds her of what little she can remember of her early years, that mixture of sorrow and hopelessness, and it seems wrong somehow. She'd like to change that.

Papa stops to speak with an elderly woman huddled on the stoop of a nearby shop, and Cosette, who's been aware for days that someone's been watching her, decides on the spur of the moment that this is her chance. She raises her head to look and it takes her a moment, but she spots the girl, her thin frame pressed up against the wall of a building across the square, looking at her with a kind of rapt fascination that makes Cosette feel like she's just found something she's been searching for all her life.

Papa would be upset if she wandered off, but he'll forgive her; he always does. Besides, she can take care of herself. She doesn't need to be wrapped up in wool and tucked away for safekeeping, and it's high time he came to terms with that.

She doesn't even realize she's holding her breath as she hurries over to where the girl is standing.

***

Cosette is approaching now, and Éponine is sure there must be something else that's caught her attention; there's no way it could have been her. Still, she stays right where she is, not daring to move. She's sure that she'll startle Cosette, or scare her off. Girls like that don't want a thing to do with the likes of her. She knows. It was the other way around once.

But Cosette is made of more steel than she appears. She's moving right toward Éponine, looking straight at her, and this can't be real. She has to be imagining things again. She's been watching for about two weeks, not wanting to risk losing the chance to do at least that much by approaching (though she's gotten a bit more daring about choosing her vantage point the past week), and if Cosette noticed, she hasn't shown any sign of acknowledging it.

"Hello," she hears in a gentle lilt -- _right in front of her_ \-- and Éponine snaps her head up to stare into a pair of blue eyes that are looking at her the way she remembers them looking at a doll once, only that can't be right because she isn't neat and pretty and well-dressed, not the sort of thing someone would want to take care of or lavish affection on, not any more.

"Mademoiselle," she murmurs in her rough voice, ducking her head out of a sudden sense of shame.

"No, please, you don't have to -- there's no need for that," Cosette says, politely, though she sounds disappointed. Does Éponine dare to interpret it as such, to think that the cause of it is that she looked away? Cosette hasn't presumed familiarity with her the way most people would with someone of a lower class, and that doesn't discourage her from entertaining the notion. "I wanted to speak with you."

"With me?" Éponine can't help her disbelieving laugh, or the sudden wariness that creeps into her tone. She wants to take Cosette at her word, but she hasn't survived the past several years by assuming anyone wants anything to do with her without an ulterior motive. "Is there something you need, mademoiselle?"

"Can't I want to talk to you for its own sake?" Cosette counters, and apparently she is every bit as stubborn as Éponine herself; she isn't backing away or giving up.

Éponine isn't quite ready to believe that's true, though, or ready to raise her head again. "Perhaps."

"Well, it's true." Undeterred by Éponine's diffidence, Cosette reaches a hand out toward her then stops short; Éponine is still staring at her feet, so she sees the gesture but not the expression on Cosette's face as she says it. The plaintive tone in her voice when she continues, on the other hand, is impossible to miss. "I wish you'd look at me, though. Please -- you don't need to avert your eyes. Is there something I've done to make you uncomfortable?"

Something _she's_ done? Éponine could laugh, and very nearly does. "No, mademoiselle," she says, and while she's careful to address Cosette formally the irony, or maybe it's poetic justice, of this reversal doesn't escape her. It makes her mouth dry, so she stumbles over the words as she goes on, "You haven't done anything."

Now she does look up, a bold tilt to her chin, almost daring Cosette to reconsider. Nobody looks her in the face if they can help it; people tend to avoid eye contact with her and find some excuse to keep their distance.

Cosette doesn't. Instead, she meets that challenging gaze squarely and smiles, and just like that Éponine's defenses melt.

***

When the girl finally looks at her, Cosette is so relieved that she can't help beaming, though now that they can see each other up close the depth of misery in those dark eyes wrenches at her heart, too. She'd like to chase that away if she can.

"Just Cosette, _please_ ," she says, and really does reach out to grip the girl's hand this time, willing to gamble that she won't be rejected if she does. It's rough against her own, callused and chapped from too much exposure to the elements, but delicate, almost fragile, at the same time; it's a fascinating combination, and she decides she likes it.

The girl is looking at their hands in undisguised amazement, as if she isn't used to kind gestures, and Cosette understands. Every day was a surprise for her in that way after she first went to live with Papa, for reasons not unrelated to the evidence of scars and bruises on the girl's bare skin, now that she's close enough to see them.

"All right then," the girl says, a tiny hint of a smile playing about the corners of her mouth, tentatively, as if she's not used to it. "Cosette."

Cosette laughs and squeezes her hand lightly. "Well, it's hardly fair for me to not know your name, is it?"

The girl freezes and her face closes off for a moment before she takes a deep breath and juts her chin forward, careless and something close to defiant.

"Éponine," she answers, her rough voice cracking just a bit more.

***

She stands there, maintaining that façade of defiance even though a cold knot is forming in her stomach as she watches Cosette for a reaction. She could have lied and given a different name; she's been raised to be good at it, after all, and falsehoods roll off her tongue with more ease than the truth most of the time. Maybe she should have; God knows, they have no shortage of aliases. It's not as if it would matter, anyway, since the odds that Cosette even remembers her are --

"Éponine," echoes Cosette, curiously. "But isn't that funny! I knew a girl named Éponine when I was very young."

"Did you? Well, isn't that just the damnedest thing." She forces a laugh, but it's a bit too loud, too careless, and it turns out Cosette -- whose eyes widen briefly, then narrow into a scrutinizing look -- is too perceptive to fall for it.

"The girl from the inn. At Montfermeil -- is it really you?"

She could lie. Strangely, she doesn't want to. She nods, silently daring Cosette to laugh at her, slap her, turn and walk away; she would deserve it, really.

In a way, the pity and compassion openly written across Cosette's face hurt even worse, but she hasn't let go of Éponine's hand yet, either; in fact, she's covered it with both of her own now.

"I'm glad," Cosette tells her, with a little smile that makes Éponine want more than anything to believe her. "I know that must sound odd, but I truly am."

"Glad to see me?" Éponine echoes, incredulous, and she is conscious of the warmth that is Cosette's hands wrapped around her own grimy one even as she remembers indignantly informing her mother that Cosette had dared to pick up her doll just once, that the dirty little girl had so much as laid a finger on a toy she'd lost interest in and tossed aside. The memory makes her feel ill, and she tries to pull her hand away, but Cosette doesn't let her. "I think, mademoiselle -- Cosette," she corrects herself quickly at the playfully chastising look she receives, "one of us must be misremembering."

***

When Cosette was a little girl, she had no idea how to react whenever Papa showed her any signs of affection; he would kiss her hand and she, accustomed to being struck any time someone laid a hand on her, would immediately assume she had done something wrong and pull away. She thinks she sees the same thing in Éponine's reaction now, and it's jarring; she has vague but definite memories of the coddling Madame Thénardier gave Éponine when they were young, that she herself always thought was denied her because she didn't deserve it.

Her heart breaks a little bit when she makes the connection. Some part of her wants to argue that Éponine doesn't deserve her forgiveness now, but it's overruled by the part of her that can't stand to see this kind of desolation in anyone's eyes, not even the girl who ignored and snubbed her in turn when they were eight years old. Papa has been just as kind and forgiving to people who have treated him worse; why should she do any less? Cosette would only have been too happy to extend affection to Éponine back then, if she thought it would have been accepted, and it seems the impulse has never quite gone away.

"We were children," she offers gently; she senses that somehow she doesn't need to, or perhaps shouldn't, elaborate too much on the years they spent under the same roof. "Children grow up and learn better, don't they?"

The bleakness in Éponine's eyes at the question makes Cosette shiver: whatever lessons she's learned in the intervening time must be of a school no child should have to attend.

"Perhaps they do," Éponine answers, and the words might have been an apology, except that apologies are offered with some hope of being accepted and there is none in her voice.

Cosette keeps her gaze steady and her tone cordial -- it's an effort, not because she wants to be angry but because she _understands_ , and almost wants to cry.

"It was a long time ago," she says, as if to imply that the past is simply that. "So much of it is a blur -- but I remember you."

The corners of Éponine's mouth twitch upward in the vague semblance of something that wants to be a smile but isn't quite there, and her dull eyes light up for the briefest moment as if being remembered at all is some kind of miracle, but the reaction's quickly obscured when she bites her lip and ducks her head again. "I suppose it would be hard to forget the way I treated you," she mutters, and the weight of experience behind the words seems to confirm Cosette's guess.

"Harder to forget how sorry I was that we couldn't be friends," she counters. It's a subtle reminder of where she feels the real blame lies: even if Éponine had been so inclined, her parents would never have allowed it.

Éponine must have caught her meaning, because a flash of understanding, if only a fleeting one, lights her eyes again and she blinks questioningly, as if to ask if that means Cosette is hoping for that now.

By way of an answer Cosette presses Éponine's hand between both of hers, gives it a very gentle tug. "Don't you think we can try, this time?"

***

Cosette is waiting on her answer. Éponine is thinking fast, weighing the risk against the reward -- she's a Thénardier, after all, and the instinct is ingrained -- and also simply biding her time; if Cosette gets impatient with the silence it will tell her a great deal.

But she doesn't. Instead she fidgets, blue eyes going wide with confusion, then with concern, as if she's genuinely worried that Éponine will say no.

Or as if she's done something wrong.

Éponine remembers seeing that look in Cosette's eyes, usually right before Mama took the strap down off the wall. It's coming back to her now, pieces here and there slipping into place so that the outlines of a picture become discernible. That picture is not as pretty as she'd thought it was. Every time Mama, in one of her tempers, called Cosette to her with the strap in hand, Éponine would watch from across the room with a strange, unnamable thrill.

The intervening years have made it clear: what she felt was relief that it wasn't her.

"I don't see why not," she says in a flippant tone that masks the odd mix of apprehension and eagerness making her mouth dry. "It's worth a try, at least."

Cosette's face lights up, the worry in her eyes chased away by her smile.

 _I did that_ , Éponine thinks in amazement, _and it took so little._ She wonders how much different things might have been if she'd cared to extend that offer years ago, and marvels at how rewarding it feels to elicit that reaction. At how _warm_ it makes her feel, in a way she's never felt before.

Cosette is about to say something when they hear her father calling for her through the crowd. "I have to go," she says, the disappointment in her voice as palpable as the sinking sensation in Éponine's stomach at the thought. "But I'll see you here tomorrow, won't I?"

Before she even realizes she's doing so, Éponine nods in agreement. "I'll be here," she answers, and it feels like a promise.

One she's willing to keep.

"Until tomorrow, then." Cosette presses her hand one more time before letting go, and as she hurries back to her father's side Éponine watches closely. It isn't until she loses sight of the bonnet bobbing away down the boulevard that the smile fades from her lips.


	3. February 1832

One tomorrow has led to another, then others in succession, but in the press of the crowd and the bustle of the day they don't get more than a few minutes to spend together. Sometimes Éponine will bring her word of someone she knows to be particularly in need; much to Cosette's disappointment Éponine flatly refuses to accept her coin, or the shawl she offered three days ago when it was bitterly cold. Mostly Éponine will talk -- it turns out she's quite the chatterer, words spilling freely from her mouth with an eagerness that verges on desperation now that she's found someone attentive -- and Cosette could be content to listen to her stories of unusual things she's seen about Paris, but she has a few of her own to share and gladly does.

They're a pleasant few minutes, and Cosette looks forward to them every day, but she's been lonely far too long for these slim fragments of time to satisfy her need for companionship. She thinks it must be mutual; Éponine smiles more easily now than she did two months ago when they first spoke, and the stories she tells are just as strange, but in a more humorous light. More than that, she always looks disappointed when Cosette has to go, but when they see each other the next day Cosette can see the way she brightens immediately.

It's a curiously _lovely_ thing to know, that she can do that to someone.

"Show me the city," she says without preamble when Éponine sidles up to her beside the café; her longing to run free has only grown stronger over all the weeks they've been meeting, fed by the stories Éponine tells, and the words spill out of her impatiently.

"Show it to you?" Éponine laughs, and there's another thing she didn't do much of until recently. Cosette thinks it's a welcome sound, like finally hearing a melody she's only caught in bits and pieces carried on the breeze, so faint she's not sure she didn't just imagine them -- and it's a slightly broken melody, but that makes it more endearing somehow.  "You go walking through it every day. Don't you think you ought to know it by now?"

Cosette gives her a chiding look and in return gets a raised eyebrow, a faint smirk, and not a single hint of apology; she's become accustomed to Éponine's flippant irreverence, and actually thinks it's rather charming. In fact, she'd been hoping for that reaction, so she allows herself a moment of triumph.

"Not the way you do," she replies.

Éponine's smile fades just a touch, and she shakes her head. "I don't know that you'd want to. Paris at night is quite a different place."

"But I do want that, I do," she persists, the idea that Éponine is concerned about her safety bringing a light flush to her cheeks. "Papa only ever takes the same route every day when we go for our walks and everything else might as well be a mystery, since otherwise we go in a fiacre.  The stories you tell me -- don't misunderstand, I like those, but I shouldn't mind seeing them for myself sometime."

"I only meant --" Éponine begins, and breaks off with a soft sigh. "Oh, all right then. But how will you get out without your father catching you at it?"

Cosette smiles, putting extra warmth into her voice to offset her belated realization that Éponine can't afford to take cabs around the city and likely didn't need the reminder.  "Don't you worry about that.  I know his habits.  Here, let me tell you where I live, and then, 'round about ten o'clock after he's gone to bed, come and meet me at the garden gate."

***

Éponine didn't need Cosette to tell her the address of the house on the Rue Plumet. For the past week she's been following at a distance when it's time for them to say goodbye, and that's no small feat when she has to tail cabs that always take different routes.  When she's gone out on some errand for her father that happens to take her through the neighborhood she's taken a few minutes just to watch the house, wondering which of the lit windows beyond the wall is Cosette's. She'd always been content just to watch, though, and not risk losing that small privilege by pushing for more, so as she approaches the garden gate in the flickering light of the streetlamps she can feel her heart pounding.

There's a figure in white -- quite the stark contrast to how easily she can slip into the shadows -- standing by the gate when she gets there.

"You're late," Cosette teases, crossing her arms in feigned petulance, and Éponine laughs as she sketches a mockingly apologetic curtsey.

"My apologies, mademoiselle --" She knows they're well past the need to be formal with each other, but she can't help liking the way Cosette pretends to pout when she reverts to that address. "The time I was looking at must have been wrong."

"All that matters to me is that you're here," Cosette informs her, and that's such a nice thing to hear that Éponine just looks at her and smiles.

"But on the wrong side of the gate -- unless it's you who's on the wrong side." Éponine taps at one of the bars, and she's teasing, but also through force of habit searching for locks to break or other signs of weakness.

Cosette moves aside a loose bar in the gate and, as she does so, gives Éponine a mischievous grin that's at stark odds with the way her white nightgown and blonde hair make her look like some kind of angel in the moonlight. It's a wild look, hinting at some devilish mischief, and the combination is captivating; Cosette reaches out to wrap slender fingers around her wrist and tug her through.  Éponine doesn't flinch; they've gotten comfortable with these casual touches, though she can't place exactly when that happened. She's used to recoiling and going on the defensive any time someone puts a hand on her, but there's something about Cosette that makes her feel safe, makes her _want_ the contact. Seeing that look on Cosette's face now doesn't make her want it any less.

At Cosette's wordless invitation Éponine allows herself to be guided over to a bench in the garden. They're seated side by side, looking up at the house, and she wonders what it must be like to live in a place like that with no noisy neighbors coming and going at all hours; she never had that even when they still had the inn.

"It's very lonely," Cosette says softly, as if she can guess what Éponine is thinking, though more likely she can make out the wistful look on Éponine's face. "And I do get tired of staying inside all the time."

It seems like such a trivial problem, and if it were anyone else confiding that to her Éponine would get angry. But there's a delicate, _warm_ hand atop hers, the scent of roses that lingers about Cosette's clothing is soothing, and she's so happy right this second that there's just no room for anger. Why ruin the moment? She knows they never last.

"You're not inside now," Éponine says, and Cosette narrows her eyes playfully.

"You know perfectly well what I mean, you delightfully impossible girl."

Cosette says things like this to her all the time, the words bubbling out of her with that artless, genuine affection that Éponine can never quite completely believe is directed at her. It's certainly more than she deserves, but she won't reject it.

"All right, then!" She springs up from the bench, pulling Cosette up with her. "You wanted me to show you the city -- what do you want to see?"

She has nothing to her name, but she knows the city in a way many people don't.  This, at least, intangible as it is, is something she can give Cosette.

More than that, she _wants_ to.

***

Their route has brought them to the edge of the Seine, and they might as well be in a different world.  Everything looks so unfamiliar in the dark that Cosette had to let Éponine lead her through the streets. She doesn't mind, really; the feel of Éponine's rough callused hand against hers is reassuring.

"How strange everything looks now!" she muses, looking out across the water to the Right Bank. "I'm sure I've come this way dozens of times during the day, but I don't recognize anything any more."

Éponine turns to look at her, and Cosette can feel the intensity of her stare even in the darkness. "Paris changes at night," she says, the voice of experience laced with an undercurrent of sadness. "The dark hides so much, you can imagine you're somewhere else completely. You can pretend the streets don't look so ugly."

"The river -- even it looks pretty," Cosette adds, and hears Éponine chuckle knowingly; the Seine is hardly an attractive sight in the daytime, crowded with boats and refuse and the overflow from the sewers.

"Isn't it quite the trick?" Éponine shifts closer, and her arm brushes against Cosette's, but neither of them pulls away from the other. "Nothing but lights against the blackness, and sometimes it's foggy and the whole thing glows as if it's magic, but mostly you'd almost think you'd gotten lost somehow, turned the wrong way, and found yourself looking down at the sky."

Her stories are peppered with comments like this, unexpectedly whimsical and grasping at the fantastic but tinged around the edges with a despair she can't quite hide.  Cosette doesn't know what to do to chase those shadows away, so she leans into the contact and finds Éponine's hand with her own to lace their fingers together.  

"Do you?" she asks, even though she's sure she knows the answer.

"Do I what?"

Éponine is avoiding the question, she can tell, so Cosette turns to look at her.  "Imagine you're somewhere else when you walk about after dark -- do you?"

"Always," answers Éponine in the exaggeratedly offhanded tone Cosette's come to recognize as the one she uses when she tries to pretend she's not ashamed.  She falls silent for a moment, then takes a quick breath and adds in a voice that's soft but as hopeful and as _genuine_ as Cosette has ever heard her sound, and it's the latter that makes her flush with pleasure: "But not tonight."

***

It wasn't a lie. Éponine almost never lies when she's with Cosette. Any other night before they started spending them together, the darkness would be her canvas and she would be painting herself pictures of a more pleasant world to fill in the emptiness, cover up what really lies behind . . . though there are nights when she's gone hungry long enough that her imagination conjures up demonic scenarios instead. Even those are better, in a way, because eventually she can remind herself that they're not real, either, or try to convince herself that she's only imagining some of the worst, too.

Tonight is different, because Paris after dark alone is an entirely different creature from Paris after dark with company and there's nowhere she'd rather be than here, stars scattered across the sky overhead and Cosette by her side. The worlds she creates for herself when she wanders alone at night are her escape to somewhere she could -- if things had gone differently -- be happy, but why retreat from the world now when in this moment, in this place, she truly is?

Cosette is her escape, these days; when they're together it isn't such a struggle to keep her constant despair at bay. Damned if she knows why, but Cosette treats her like someone who deserves kindness and attention -- like she's better than she is -- and for those shared moments it feels like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders and she can breathe again, be the sixteen-year-old girl she might have been. For this, Éponine realizes, she is genuinely grateful.

A faint shiver runs through her body when the understanding sets in, not from cold or fear but from pure delight, and . . . something that goes beyond gratitude. She'd forgotten what that was like.

Their hands are still clasped, so Cosette must have felt it, because she turns to look at her. "Is something wrong? 'Ponine, are you all right?"

Is she? She doesn't know. She's giddy, yes, nearly lightheaded from the long-forgotten rush and the delight that wells up in her when she hears that nickname in Cosette's voice, and she's not sure she knows how to speak. She doesn't understand emotions like this well enough to put them into words anyhow, but she does know actions, so by way of an answer she lets go of Cosette's hand and, before the other girl has time to look disappointed or she can second-guess herself, slides both arms around her waist to pull her close.

Cosette hesitates and for one awful moment Éponine thinks she's going to pull away because really, what right does a grubby _gamine_ like her have to presume so much, to soil Cosette's pretty clothes with the dirt on her skin and her own sorry rags?  Instead she feels Cosette's arms around her shoulders and hears a soft, pleased laugh just beside her ear.

"I think I should take that to mean yes," Cosette murmurs, tucking her chin against Éponine's shoulder, and the warmth of her breath against Éponine's skin seems to spread throughout her entire body.

'Yes' is close enough, so Éponine closes her eyes, savors the terrifying, wonderful intimacy of the embrace, and doesn't bother to correct her. She can't, anyhow, not when she turns her head slightly and opens her eyes to find Cosette looking at her with a tenderness that takes her breath away -- and before either of them can question it Cosette is leaning in and pressing her lips against Éponine's own.

It feels almost like she's not quite so lost any more.


	4. April 1832

Cosette doesn't like to sleep in very much, but Papa indulges her and doesn't question that she seems to be waking later in the morning these days.  (To tell the truth, Papa hardly seems to notice how much more animated and cheerful she is of late; Cosette doesn't mind too much, since after all he is her father and she hardly expects him to understand what it's like to be a teenage girl.) It's become a routine ever since that night six weeks ago by the river: they return to the garden around 3 o'clock in the morning and she sees Éponine off with a kiss before she sneaks back into her bedroom.

It isn't until after she wakes up that she lets herself think about the previous night, as if to reassure herself that none of it was a dream.  

It would be easy to think that she's been dreaming it all. The girl who meets her in the garden at night knows how to laugh and tease, has a gentleness in her touch and a vulnerability in her eyes that seem a lifetime apart from the prickly and closed-off young woman she met in the streets all those weeks ago. Her childhood antagonist of a sort (she wouldn't go so far as to say enemy) has become more than her friend.  If Cosette hadn't been there all along to witness those changes in Éponine, she wouldn't believe they were real.

She has a sneaking suspicion that Éponine has never really understood love, not with the way she grew up; Cosette remembers just enough of what life with the Thénardiers was like to guess at that. It shows in the uncertainty of Éponine's bearing every time Cosette tells her how much she adores her.  Thinking about that, she's simultaneously even more glad that Papa took her away from that inn, and guilty knowing -- because Éponine doesn't realize it, but Cosette pays enough attention to notice old scars and new bruises alike -- that after she left the Thénardiers found a new target for their anger.

"You are a delight," Cosette told her just a few hours ago, apropos of nothing but the mood striking her and the impulse to say so, and Éponine looked at her in honest confusion.

"What have I done to bring that on?"

"Nothing but be yourself, dearest," Cosette said, and brushed her fingertips along Éponine's cheek lightly; the gesture was a habit she'd gotten into, her way of telling Éponine that her feelings came with no strings attached.

It's one of Cosette's greatest regrets that she can't make up for all the years Éponine has spent lonely and forgotten, but she tries anyway, even if she worries that it's too late to set everything right. She can't help but love that Éponine is always trying to do something for her -- finding some new hidden spot for them to explore or making up a story about a statue in the Luxembourg or offering to see if she can prevail on her brother to get them tickets to a play -- but suspects that it could be a long time, if ever, before Éponine understands that she doesn't have to earn her affection.  

She's started to recognize the way Éponine will bite her lip and look down at the ground every time she says or does something that catches Cosette off guard as a nervous fidget. She remembers how quickly and severely Madame Thénardier's temper could flare up and how long it took her to learn not to expect automatic punishment from Papa or anyone else; it makes her sad to know Éponine is still conditioned to expect the same.

It happened last night: they had paused outside a shop window to peer in at the dresses they could see on display in the faint light of the streetlamps, and Cosette pointed at one in particular that had caught her eye.

"I wouldn't mind that one," she remarked.  "Papa would say it's not suitable for a girl my age, but oh, wouldn't it be lovely?"

Éponine was silent for a breath or two before saying, haltingly, "I don't know. I'm not so fond of it, myself."  She flinched, then, and ducked her head before blurting out in a hurry, "But I do think it'd look nice on you, really, I do."

Cosette put two fingertips beneath her chin and tilted her head up, her heart lurching painfully in her chest at the terrified look in Éponine's eyes.

"I don't think it would suit you anyway, my dear."  She kept her voice gentle and willed Éponine to hold her gaze, to keep looking into her eyes until it was plain that she had no anger or retribution to fear.  They stood there like that, silent, until Éponine finally reached out to touch Cosette's cheek with a hesitant smile.

It's only this morning that Cosette realizes that it must have hurt Éponine as well to be reminded of the things she can't afford, and she curls into her blankets with a frown.  She'll just have to make up for that tonight.  She doesn't bring up the past -- neither of them do, choosing instead to tread carefully around the subject even if Cosette's impulsive nature occasionally leads them into uneasy territory like it did last night -- but she tries particularly hard to bring as much kindness as she can into Éponine's life. Papa taught her well, after all, and it's nice to put those lessons to use.

It's even nicer to see how she can get Éponine to smile. The desperation and hardship of the past few years is written on her face in such a way that Éponine looks so much older than she is most of the time, but now when she smiles all of that seems to fall away.  That this happens most often when she's looking at Cosette is such a pleasant feeling that Cosette could stay curled up under her covers for hours just picturing that look on Éponine's face. Most mornings, at least for an hour or so, she does just that. It's almost a ritual, her way of trying to hold on to the previous night for just a little while longer.

This morning's no different.

***

It's harder and harder to go home after her nights with Cosette, and Éponine's taken to staying out until the dawn before she creeps back into her family's horrid apartment. Nighttime is almost sacred to her now, the bright spot in her life that she guards jealously against the darkness, and she can't bear to ruin it with the drunken shouting that permeates the walls at all hours here, or whichever of her father's friends happens to be hanging about this time -- these things are evidence of the ugliness in the world by day, and she'd prefer to keep them that way.  They don't belong in the world she inhabits after the sun sets.

Her world is lightest after dark.

At night, with Cosette, she's a different person.  The darkness hides so much, including her faults -- maybe especially those.  She used to think that nightfall changed the city; now, she feels, it changes her, too.  

They still see each other for those few minutes during the day, but they can hardly be as affectionate in the middle of a public square as they can in Cosette's garden, or on some deserted bridge after midnight; as it is, Éponine is already far too conscious that their continued association is enough to put Cosette's reputation in jeopardy, and that's before she even takes her family into consideration.  Her father has never gotten over letting Cosette go.  If he knew she was so close, that he had this much of an inside angle to leverage he wouldn't hesitate to use it, with or without her knowledge.  She's afraid to mention this to Cosette, though; if anything would drive her away, Éponine's convinced this would be it.

Speaking of family -- the sun is just creeping up above the rooftops as she approaches the tenement that passes for home when a small hand presses a morsel of bread into her palm.

"Clumsy work, that," she says out of the corner of her mouth, but she's smiling when she turns to see Gavroche, and already tearing into the stale crust with her teeth so that her voice is muffled when she asks, "Don't you have kids to be looking after?"

"I've taught 'em well enough. They'll manage," Gavroche replies, all airy confidence, though that fades quickly into an abnormally serious expression.  "He was looking for you last night, y'know. For a job."

Father, of course.  " _Merde_ ," Éponine mutters under her breath.  He'll be furious when he sees her, but whatever new bruises she ends up with are the least of her worries.  With a sigh, she slouches against the alley wall while Gavroche perches on a wine cask nearby, watching her with concern.  

"He's had the gang around lately, y'know, talking about laying a trap for the old gentleman.  If the old man finds out you're chums with Monsieur the Philanthropist's daughter --"

"I know.   _Damn_ it!"  This is everything Éponine was afraid of, but for the sake of hanging on to her first real chance of happiness in a very long time she'd let herself keep thinking it wouldn't be inevitable, if luck favored her just once.  But of course that was stupid -- she's never that lucky.  She's on the verge of lapsing into a despairing and desperate mood when Gavroche nudges her with his foot.

"He thinks you're off with one of the boys from the Musain," he informs her with a roll of his eyes, and she snorts in agreement: if any of Marius's friends are aware of her existence at all it's only as one more figure in the crowd that represents their cause.  Still, it does ease some of her immediate fears, and if that's what her father thinks she won't go out of her way to correct him.  Gavroche looks at her intently, then smirks and hops down off the cask.  "Well, I've got some affairs to look after, and you've had a long night.  Better get some sleep," he calls over his shoulder in a lecturing tone -- as if he were the older sibling, and she the younger one in need of looking after -- as he darts away.

Once Éponine is inside and curled up on her pallet against the dingy, mold-reeking wall, she's struck by a sudden wave of exhaustion.  It isn't difficult at all to drift off, but sleep is restless and uneasy, plagued by the constant nagging thought that it's only a matter of time before she drags Cosette down into the hopeless morass that is her life.

That wouldn't be quite as troublesome a thought if she weren't aware that she loves Cosette far too much to let that happen, which coexists uncomfortably and improbably with the fact that she loves Cosette enough that she thinks she never wants to let her go. Someday, and most likely very soon, she'll have to make a choice, but she's not so unselfish yet that she won't try and hold on to what they have until something -- as always -- takes it away from her.  She's still reckless enough to keep walking that line.


	5. May 1832

They still meet every day in the square, but it's the evenings Cosette looks forward to the most, when it's just her and Éponine and the darkness concealing them from curious onlookers. Every night after Papa has gone to bed she slips out into the garden toward the gate, and every night Éponine is waiting there to greet her with an outstretched hand and a light glinting in her dark eyes.

She should feel worse about defying Papa this way; she knows he only wants her to be safe, and to tell the truth she feels torn. Sooner or later he's bound to notice, and she doesn't know what she'll do then; the thought of lying to him doesn't sit well with her at all. But -- so she tells herself by way of justification -- he wants her to be happy, too, doesn't he? Well, then, Éponine makes her happy. Besides, no matter what rift might have existed between them in childhood and is occasionally still conjured up in uneasy moments she's sure that Éponine, who moves through the streets at night with a stealthy kind of grace that Cosette envies (and finds terribly attractive), won't let anything happen to her. That's not to say that Éponine tries to keep her in some bubble, either, but she knows the warning signs of danger in the streets, and does her best to teach Cosette to recognize them.

"Bonsoir, mademoiselle." Éponine's husky voice comes at her out of the darkness as she arrives at the gate, and Cosette laughs; neither of them even tries to pretend any more that Éponine's insistence on an overly formal greeting is anything other than an attempt to get Cosette to pout at her.

She's doing just that, arms crossed in mock indignance, when Éponine slips between the gate's bars. "'Mademoiselle' again, as if I'm some stranger you've only just met! Will you never remember not to call me that?"

Just as expected Éponine darts in, flings her arms around Cosette's neck, and kisses her. "No," she says cheekily and with no trace left of formality once they break apart, "since I'm too fond of that look on your face every time I . . . forget."

"And I find your impudence far too endearing to be upset with you over it, even if I do worry that your memory is going," Cosette replies with an indulgent smile. She treasures moments like these, when Éponine is as open and affectionate as she is guarded and distant the rest of the time, hiding behind her façade of careless indifference. She understands why that is, or at least she thinks she does -- less from what little tidbits of her daily life Éponine will let slip in conversation, and more from the eloquent silence of her awkward pauses and unfinished sentences. Cosette doesn't press for that information, at any rate. She has the sense that whatever Éponine does tell her is hard enough for her to share. 

Besides, there are moments like this where Éponine is all but bubbling over with laughter and affection that she's either kept locked inside all this time or never realized she was capable of. Cosette remembers discovering what it was like to be happy and loved when her Papa came into her life, and it breaks her heart a little bit to think of how Éponine once knew those things -- or thought she did, at least -- then had them taken away from her. She considers herself lucky to be the one who restores some light and warmth to Éponine's life, but it works both ways: Éponine's presence in her own life feels like the answer to a question she never realized she was asking.

Because now they're slipping out through the gate and into the cool night air, there is a light rain falling, Éponine's fingers are intertwined with hers, and all of Paris is theirs to explore; she's never felt as in control of her own life as she does right now. 

"What d'you think about going into the Tuileries tonight?" Éponine asks her as they turn onto the boulevard. "There's some flowers there that only smell nice at night; my brother told me about them earlier."

Cosette smiles; emboldened by the thrill that always comes with their nightly escapes from the garden, she tugs on Éponine's hand and pulls her close enough for a kiss. She can practically feel Éponine smirking beneath her lips; Éponine knows about the wild streak in her, and loves it whenever Cosette decides to defy appearances and indulge it. So she does, kissing the other girl with a fierceness that belies her generally demure bearing.

"Is that an answer?" teases Éponine once they've (reluctantly, of course) broken apart and she can speak again, and Cosette is smugly satisfied to hear the breathless, dazed way the question comes out. "That can't be all you want to do. I'm hardly complaining, you know, if you want to kiss me, but it's so pretty out tonight, the way the rain makes everything glisten."

She pauses, brushes her fingers lightly against Cosette's cheek -- Cosette closes her eyes and leans into the touch, a faint shiver of pleasure running through her -- and murmurs, with an unidentifiable hitch in her voice, "And you look lovely in the moonlight."

"Have I ever told you what a silver tongue you have? You flatter me, my dearest, but I'm afraid I don't want you to stop." Cosette is about to say more, but there's a soft rustling sound from a nearby alley and Éponine is suddenly alert, tensed and watching; everything about her bearing resembles a young wolf with its hackles up. It's wild and primal, and it resonates deeply with that part of Cosette's spirit that's always yearning to run free.

"This way," she says tersely, and starts toward a well-lit tavern nearby. They wait outside the doorway while Éponine keeps a sharp eye on the boulevard, and when nothing has happened after several long minutes they go back on their way again. To tell the truth, Cosette's almost sorry she didn't get a chance to see what Éponine would have done if things came to a confrontation. She thinks, for a moment, of asking what that was all about, but Éponine's expression has closed off and Cosette knows she won't be getting an answer anyway.

"Did Gavroche really tell you about these flowers?" she asks, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence that's followed them from the tavern, as they amble slowly through a copse where there are indeed fragrant blossoms on the vines that trail from the branches overhead. Éponine finally introduced her to Gavroche a few days ago, and she likes him: he's a perceptive boy, as smart-mouthed and quick-witted as his sister but possessed of a natural joy that hasn't been dimmed the way hers has. She's managed to reconstruct very vague memories of hearing a baby crying somewhere in the Montfermeil inn and is glad Gavroche escaped that, but sobered by knowing it was too late to salvage whatever might have been left of Éponine's childhood. She tries, she really does, but no matter what she does it seems like she can only dispel those shadows for a little while.

"He did." Éponine sounds a bit bewildered but at the same time as if she's struggling to hold back a laugh. "He told me it sounded like just the sort of romantic spot that I ought to consider bringing you to, just so he wouldn't have to watch us look moon-eyed at each other. I swear to God, Cosette, I never said a thing to him about us!"

Cosette claps a hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter; Gavroche is, it seems, far more perceptive than she even realized. She's not shocked, she's delighted -- between him and Éponine, perhaps there's redemption for their family yet.

"Does it bother you, that he knows?" Éponine asks, and she sounds worried. "He won't say a word to our parents, you can count on that."

"Hush," says Cosette, pulling her close for a kiss that she hopes conveys her reassurance. "I don't mind at all. I'm grateful to him, really, because this is a lovely place."

Éponine smiles at her, relief clearly written across her face. "I'll tell him you said so."

"With my thanks, too, if you'll be so kind." Cosette touches a fingertip to Éponine's lips, then bounds back a step and curtseys with a flourish. "And now, my love, would you do me the honor of a dance?"

The wet grass is slippery, there's no music to provide them with a rhythm, and Éponine doesn't know the steps so Cosette has to teach her -- only they never can quite remember who's leading and it's far more clumsy than graceful. They both know that sooner or later the rain will stop and the night will end. They can't stop it any more than they can the sun whose rising marks the end of their trysts with dreadfully inconvenient consistency, or grasp it with any more success than they can the butterflies that inhabit Cosette's garden and flutter away almost as soon as they alight. They both know this, but they've learned the same lesson, albeit in very different schools; moments like these are the ones they need to hold on to for as long as they possibly can. After all, even if by some mutual unspoken agreement they pretend not to see it, they're both aware that in many ways fate is not on their side.

None of that matters though, not right now, because the moonlight filtering down through the trees lights the misty rainfall with an almost magical glow, the sweet and heady perfume of the midnight blossoms infuses their every breath, and even if they stumble it's only into each other's arms.

**Author's Note:**

> "Une poupée dans la vitrine" (a doll in the window) is the title of the French version of "Castle on a Cloud," which is a completely different song; it's all Cosette projecting her desires by talking about how she'd take good care of the doll if it were hers, and concludes with her saying that she'd ask Father Christmas for it if she only knew how to write. 
> 
> I've taken some characterization cues from that. I freely admit that for some little details I also took some bits of inspiration from the French, German, Spanish, and Dutch translations of "On My Own" as well as the English, because I think the most fascinating thing about that song is what you can infer from it about the rest of Éponine's life, and because where either languages or Les Mis are involved I am exactly that kind of nerd.


End file.
